Although he had the vast resources of the Order of St. Dumas at his
disposal, Jean Paul Valley never felt the need for a large apartment.
Azrael favored the Spartan lifestyle of an ancient warrior, dismissing any
form of luxury as a dangerous indulgence that softened the soldier spirit.
And Jean Paul’s personal tastes were those of a man whose happiest years of
life were spent in a college dorm. He was comfortable living on that
scale. His furniture wasn’t cheap or deficient, but there wasn’t much
of it. His bathroom and kitchen were clean and tidy, but they were
small. Like so many Gotham apartments, his kitchen was small. It
had never been a problem that he had no room to store full sets of dishes or
cooking pans. He never needed them—until now. Now, he turned and
twisted, looking for a free surface to set down the cutting board.

He relocated the wok, the teakettle, and the peanut oil to the cold
stovetop and told Azrael to shut up.

I spoke not a word, Mortal,
the angel pointed out.

Jean Paul set his grocery bag on the freed counter space, then picked it
up again and set it on the floor, and put the cutting board on the counter.

“I said shut up, Az,” he repeated.

Mortal, you seem agitated. It is not wise to handle steel, be
it knifeblade or sword, in that state of mind.

“Right. Refrigerator. With the dumplings. Oops, put the
fortune cookies in there too. They don’t need refrigerated, they’ll
get soggy.”

Mortal—

Shut up, Az, Jean Paul thought the
rebuke rather than speaking it aloud. She’ll be here any minute.
I gotta get this ready. Cooking together is big, it’s a new level.
It’s kind of a—

Date. It is a date, Mortal. You have concealed from
yourself for many weeks now that you have been dating Ms. Bertinelli—

We’re not dating!

—because it is always she who initiates the social encounter.

Suggesting we get a cup of coffee now and then isn’t initiating
anything, Az. And going dutch to the occasional movie together isn’t
exactly dating, either.

She is uncommonly aggressive for a female, Mortal. I have
pondered whether it is wise for you to indulge her advances as you have, but
now that you have at last taken the initiative—

Huge mistake, Az. Huge. Asking her over like that. Why
didn’t I ever notice what a pathetic hovel this place is. We’re going
to have to eat on the coffee table—shit, I should move the TV into the
bedroom or she’ll think I eat in front of the TV like some kind of beer
guzzling scratch myself slob—took half an hour finding two non-chipped
dishes that matched.

Mortal, may I remind you that you—

Are the man? I know Az, I know. I’m the man. I’ve gotta
pull it together.

—Undoubtedly. But I was going to say: May I remind you
that you still have several vegetables and a chicken to chop up in
preparation for this ‘stir fry’ as well as setting the table, and relocating
the television to the bedroom, which I concur would be most prudent in
presenting yourself as a man of civilized habits. You should then
change your shirt. The one you are wearing is somewhat wrinkled.
It is a mark of respect always gleaned by the fair sex if you take pains to
attire yourself well prior to meeting with them.

Az.

You should also shave.

Azrael… Have you got a little thing for Helena?

Nonsense, Mortal. I have every respect for her Huntress
persona as a crimefighting ally, and it will behoove our crimefighting
efforts to make any such modifications to your private life as will bring
you fulfillment.

YOU’VE GOT A THING FOR HUNTRESS! WAY TO GO, AZ.

…Shave, Mortal. Our time grows short… Indulge not in
that aftershave that smells of a spice market in Budapest.

Yessir, Az. Whatever you say.

Barbara heard the faint tone that indicated an OraCom unit coming online.
She checked her panel to see, and it was Dinah’s channel. She watched
as the “BC” on the panel glowed orange for five seconds, indicating the new
arrival, and then faded to the same black as the other units that were
active.

Barbara paused, her finger over the button to open the channel. She
had no assignment for Dinah, it was still early, but once upon time, she
would have buzzed in all the same to say “Hi.”

Instead, Barbara wheeled herself to the kitchen and started the water for
another pot of tea. She had tried to stay out of it. She tried
to support her husband and her friend, but the more of an effort she made,
the clearer it became that her “friend” didn’t want to be supported.
It was like Dinah expected Barbara to hate her, to be as angry and
vindictive as everyone else. She was reading punishment into
everything, from a surveillance assignment to a mail run to Cleveland, and
she had become increasingly defensive, irrational, and bitchy.

But still Barbara let it all roll off her back. She let it pass
night after night, snipe after snipe, because she thought she had to; she
wanted to prove she wasn’t turning on Dinah just because Dick had. She
tried as long as she could; she let as much of it pass—from both Dinah and
Dick, neither one appreciating the position she was in, stuck between
them—let as much of it pass as she possibly could. But that 20-minute
crack was the last straw.

So Dick wasn’t forgiving and forgetting the way Dinah expected. He
didn’t think she could be trusted, he’d been incredibly protective of Tim
anyway since Jack Drake was attacked, and Nightwing had been left in charge
of the team. So if he vetoed loud and clear her little proposition
about teaming with Robin and Batgirl while Bruce was away, that was
the decision. Was she only prepared to follow orders when it involved
lobotomizing captured villains or mindwiping one of their own?

After 10 minutes of listening to Dinah complain as if she was the
injured party, Barbara invented a shootout on the docks and closed the
channel.

“Twenty lousy minutes,” that’s “all they took,” she said.
Was she supposed to do penance “for the rest of her life?”

Barbara had tried to remain neutral, she had tried to distance herself
emotionally from the turmoil that was turning everyone else inside out on
this, and it was at that moment, she realized she succeeded. Because
at that moment she didn’t see “Dinah, her friend” or “Black Canary, the
crimefighter”—she saw Norman Panks from the victim’s support group.
Norman was a gambler, he ran up debts he couldn’t repay with people you
don’t run away from. They went to his house, his wife died in the
attack and he wound up in a wheelchair, bullet severed his spinal column,
just like Barbara.

He was the most poisonously bitter and repugnant individual you could
meet outside of Arkham or Blackgate. And after two months of meetings,
Barbara finally realized why: Guilt. Norman knew he was to blame for
his wife’s death. He felt he should be punished. So he sabotaged
himself with everyone he met, bringing on the abuse and rejection he thought
he deserved.

Dinah had been carrying on exactly like Norman Panks. She was
sabotaging herself with Barbara and any sympathizers she might have left in
the Bat-Clan, and the only reason to do that was guilt. And the only
reason to feel guilty is if she knew she’d done something wrong.

Barbara had tried to remain neutral, and only now that she
mentally dropped a weight onto one side of the scale and consciously “took a
side” against Dinah, did she realize the neutrality was killing her.
She’d had a sick tightness in her stomach, in her neck, and a sour taste in
her mouth for months. Now, for the first time since the big
confession, she actually felt… alright.

“He was off,” Jervis confided to Victor Frieze, Sly the bartender, and
Oswald Cobblepot. “Crazy-puzzle-man has its place, naturally, here at
the ‘Berg to celebrate a successful heist or impress the groupies.
Kaloo to Ka-lay, if you know what I say. But this was a
business dinner. This was a negotiation. There was no henchman
or henchwench around to impress. It was very odd.”

“What did you do?” Oswald asked, “go full-bore Wonderland on him?”

“Yeah, Mr. Nigma’s always one of the first to point out how annoying that
is,” Sly said—then winced apologetically at Jervis Tetch. “I just
meant, you know, when you’re not expecting it,” he added weakly, mentally
kissing his tips goodbye for the next month.

“Right, give it right back to him” Frieze insisted, ignoring Sly’s faux
pas and thumping the bar vigorously with his finger. “You want to play
the crazy-theme-villain hand here, Edward? Let’s go. I’ll guarantee I can
out-crazy you any day of the week.”

“I tossed out a few,” Jervis said mildly, “but I wasn’t trying to pick a
fight. I just wanted to hear his pitch and get on with it.”

“Was it any good?” Oswald asked shrewdly.

“Superb,” Jervis moped. “A million dollar job, technology tied to a
helmet. Nothing less than you’d expect from The Riddler. Damnit.
It would have made a for a frabjously fruminous felony.”

“Ak-hem,” Oswald coughed, since the annoying-theme subject had been
raised so recently.

“Sorry,” Jervis apologized. “Anyway, it was a good target.
Broke my heart to turn him down.”

Across the room, Edward Nigma watched the quartet and could guess the
topic of conversation. Jervis was such a gossipy little fusspot.
He really should have known better, going to a chatterbox like Mad Hatter
with a scheme. Eddie reached into his pocket and pulled out the
telling little slip from the fortune cookie. He read it over again as he
sipped his drink. “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a
different person then.”

It was the great riddle of his day. For a man of Edward Nigma’s
temperament and profession, it was truly the ultimate question: Who is
Batman under his mask? And now he, Edward Nigma the Prince of
Puzzlers, had the answer: Bruce Wayne.

So now the great riddle was how to continue. How, knowing that
secret, was he to continue BEING the Riddler, making use of the information
and yet not making use of it? How to devise the perfect crime, the
perfect clue, the perfect means of delivery—and then, how to execute that
plan knowing the clue would lead the Bat to the crime scene, to him, into
the confrontation and then—and then—and then that was the riddle! How
to continue? He could no longer not know, he could no longer…
It was Bruce Wayne under that mask—and having that knowledge in the midst of
a Bat-confrontation was not as satisfying as he’d expected.

The fact that it was Selina’s boyfriend didn’t help matters, certainly,
but even without that complication, there was something strangely… off
balance… in the room now whenever Riddler and Batman met.

A teamup seemed the perfect solution. With a cohort present that
did not know the secret, both he and Batman would be forced to pretend.
Everything would be as it had always been—it would have to be—they would
have no choice—at all.

A perfect plan, the perfect solution to the puzzle, everything could go
back to normal—if only Jervis had gone along with it!

Rogue pride. Stupid rogue pride. Because he didn’t think it
up himself, that’s why Tetch wouldn’t go along. They were all such
self-absorbed shitheads, it would be just the same no matter who he asked,
especially with Tetch now running his yap to any Rogue that would listen. No
telling what bizarre theories or conspiracies that demented little toadstool
was floating around about him at this point.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

There was a sudden, loud moan of disappointment from Raven’s podium at
the door. A catgirl was being turned away… looking for Blake of
course. She must’ve just learned he was up the river. Eddie
winced as he saw her. Groupies…

hmm…

Groupies.

Now there was a thought.

Rogues were difficult to maneuver, but a henchwench, a henchwench would
provide much the same cover. She wouldn’t know Batman’s identity any
more than Jervis or Jonathan or Victor would. He would have to
pretend, Batman would have to pretend—EUREKA—it would all be the way it
was!

Yes, that was the answer. Riddler disliked burdening himself with
armies of henchmen. It was undignified—besides which, such men were
uniformly stupid and Eddie had to deal with enough stupidity as it was
without inviting more right into his hideout and actually letting it in on
his plans. Occasionally they were a necessary evil, but on the whole,
he avoided hiring henchmen whenever he could.

But a wench, that was another matter. He used to like showing off
for a comely lady or two. Echo, Query, Vestige, Doris, Mull, Muse,
Puz—

Doris.

Doris who wouldn’t change her name—or put on a costume.Doris who
wouldn’t be a henchwench.Doris who said crossword puzzles were no
foundation for a lasting relationship.Doris who had no interest in
seeing him in the field, in seeing “The Riddler” do what he did best.
Doris who had no interest in the baubles Riddler’s plunder could buy.
Doris who didn’t get off living in the hideout of the famous rogue from the
newspapers.Doris who didn’t get off seeing the face of the famous rogue
in bed with her.Doris who did get off though, quite spectacularly, when
he’d…

Oh hell.

Well, a guy couldn’t stay on the floor forever. He’d had a bad
year, between Harley and Doris and Clurissa and that greened
one-nighter-from-hell with Poison Ivy. A bad year and he’d sworn off
women for a while, but that was no reason to—

Doris.

She wouldn’t put on a costume or change her name or be a henchwench, but
boy could she return a serve. Dancing together at the Halloween party…
“Like in baseball (cha-cha-cha), those kids that hang in the dugout and
manage the e-(cha-cha-cha)-quipment, what are they called again?” And
literally without missing a beat, she followed his lead: turn-step-
“Batboys.” Cha-cha-cha.

Batboys.

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person
then.”

Batboys.

Bruce gets Selina. Bruce the-freaking-Batman Wayne gets Selina,
and what did Eddie get, hm? “Eddie, we need to talk.” A hazy memory of
Poison Ivy looking royally pissed and a dandelion he couldn’t explain in his
waistband. The Gotham Post making him over into a GenX Metrosexual on
his 40th Birthday, and then… then Batman beats the living shit
out of him all because… because…

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person
then.”

What a hopeless riddle.

Cassie sat in the corner of the Batcave medlab, shivering and breathing
rhythmically into a paper bag. Several feet away, Tim held a bloodied
bandage against the deepest cut in his leg, maintaining a firm, steady
pressure just as Alfred had instructed. They both heard the calm,
reassuring warble in the room beyond, as Alfred called a final status report
into Nightwing.

“It’s happened to all of us, Cass,” Tim said kindly. “Y’shouldn’t
worry about it.”

She glared at him hatefully and the paper bag puffed out violently from
her sudden, angry exhale.

Alfred returned, checked Tim’s bandage, and cleared his throat.

“Very well then, you are both to spend the night here in the house.
You will make your respective log entries in the morning, and Dr. Thompkins
will examine you both at that time. Master Timothy, assuming your
wound clots properly and remains free of infection, I would expect you to be
cleared to resume patrolling as early as next week. Master Bruce will
return tomorrow and make the final determination on when Miss Cassie may
resume crimefighting activities.”

“C’mon, Alfred,” Tim interjected, “Ya don’t have to be so grim about it.
She feels bad enough as it is.”

Alfred silenced him with a Bat-glare that made Bruce’s look like a cheery
wink, then directed a similar look at Cassie.

“It is no trivial thing, young woman, to have proceeded as you did
against a villain of the Scarecrow’s stature without waiting for proper
backup. You are fortunate indeed that Master Robin was near enough to
reach you when he did, and more fortunate still that the toxin to which you
were exposed was the generic one for which we have an antidote. If it were
one of his more ‘exotic’ blends, you would have to be sedated. As it
is, I will still need to monitor your pulse and blood pressure throughout
the night.”

“Couldn’t wait. Had hostage,” Cassie said simply.

“See, I told ya, Alfred. Cassie is a pro. If she went in
alone, it’s ‘cause she had to. Like any of us would. And the
fear gas, it’s like I said, it’s happened to us all, and it’s a lot to deal
with. Can’t you guys leave her alone and save the lectures for later.”

Alfred’s face softened as he looked from Cassie back to Tim, then back to
Cassie.

“Indeed. My apologies, miss.”

He left quickly, almost awkwardly, and Tim gaped in surprised horror, as
if he hadn’t known his own strength and accidentally broke a window by
tossing a paper ball at it. He looked at Cassie as if for confirmation
that Alfred Pennyworth really had just raced out of the room like a clumsy
pickpocket, and then followed the butler in confusion.

Helena Bertinelli smiled. She licked her lips seductively, although
the trace of “spicy” peanut stir fry that lingered was remarkably bland.
It had been quite a while since she’d been on a real date, and even longer
since she felt this kind of comfortable with a man.

It had been building since the night they met by chance on the roof
across from Barbara’s apartment: both summoned to a mysterious “attendance
mandatory” meeting; both uncomfortable that it was held at Barbara and Dick
Grayson’s home; both recognizing that the other was stalling, putting off
the dreaded moment as long as possible, and for the same reason. They
silently agreed to help each other through the meeting: arriving together
divided the attention either would have received walking in alone, sitting
together kept them from feeling like the poor relation that had to be
invited to the wedding but whom nobody wanted to dance with, and leaving
together… well that part wasn’t planned. But given the nature of the
meeting, both wanted to talk afterwards, and both realized they wouldn’t be
anyone else’s first choice for a confidant.

“What do you think?” Huntress asked as soon as they were back on the
roof.

Huntress thoughtfully rubbed her left fist inside her right, as if
massaging the knuckles with her fingertips.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think you and I aren’t the bottom of the totem pole anymore,” she said
shrewdly.

The next weeks proved her out. Oracle was calling her more often,
with definite assignments, not random check-ins. She wondered if
Azrael had been similarly ‘bumped up the food chain,’ but she waited another
week before (casually) asking Oracle his whereabouts. That led to the
first of those “accidental” meetings.

He had located Ventriloquist and Scarface in some kind of toy factory by
the riverfront, and it looked like they were moving into narcotics.
Another set of fists always comes in handy in a situation like that.
So she’d joined in—Blam—and they fought so well together.—Splotch—They fell
into such a rhythm, no instructions needed, just a mutual sense of timing
and instinct.—Skrunch—

And then they talked—well, she talked, he was pretty quiet. He
struck her as the last guy in the world you’d draft into the crimefighting
life. Shy, sweet, self-deprecating, a disarming aw-Dad way
about him… Of course she realized that was the guy in the
helmet, not the Azrael crimefighting persona, but even so, he seemed like he
must be a poet or an artist. Quiet a leap from there to the
Blam-Splotch-Skrunch of an arrogant, blowhard vigilante.

She found a way to ask, finally, without seeming to hint about names or
day jobs, and that’s when the truth came out. He “sort of inherited
the family business,” he said—and with that chance phrase, it all made
sense. The daughter of a powerful mob boss, Helena grew up with
countless men (and boys) who were cut out for other things, but who followed
into a “Family” business because they had no choice.

It was when she told him that part of her own past that the masks came
off—and that was quite a shock. He was downright handsome.
Helena had been involved with four handsome men, including Grayson, and
each turned out worse than the last. She had developed a positive
aversion to attractive men: nice to look at meant hell to spend time
with. The ego, the arrogance, the ‘sun sets on me’ attitude. But
Jean Paul had none of that. She couldn’t believe it when “Azrael” took
off his helmet and the man she’d come to think of as this modest, gentle
soul looked like a Calvin Klein model. If he’d come up to her in
civilian life looking like that, she would have blown him off immediately.

“Would you like some more?” Jean Paul offered, holding out the bowl of
“spicy” chicken and broccoli.

“Sure, just a bite,” she smiled… The stir fry was bland, but so was
Helena’s social life since becoming the Huntress, and Jean Paul Valley was
decidedly not.

The Monarch of Menace’s entrance into the Iceberg Lounge was truly a
piece of royal theatre. Raven, the hostess, was never impressed by
costumes. She thought some of the doormen were far too quick to let
any flamboyant outfit in if it was a slow Tuesday night, and that left her
to deal them. The showy figure that stood at her podium was a perfect
example, and she called the new doorman (Mark, was it?) in from his post to
make her point.

“Okay, now look at this that you’ve sent me,” she hissed, pointing at the
new customer’s back. “Head to toe in a red velvet cape and tunic
trimmed with, what is that, Dalmatian fur? You send me Cruella De Vil
in a Miss America crown and a purple mask.”

Before Mark could explain why he’d admitted the man who admittedly looked
more Disney drag queen than Gotham rogue, the reason became clear.
Harley Quinn bounced in from the coat check and curled her arm around his.

“Your scepter, Your Majesty” she announced, handing him a long gold
stick. “They didn’t want to check it ‘cause it’s electrified and they
got a lot a C4 and gunpowder in there already.”

“Harley please, you can call me Mr. M.” he nodded graciously, and she
curtseyed and giggled.

Raven blanched and hurried back to the podium.

“Good evening, Harley,” she enthused. “I didn’t realize you two
were together.”

“Hiya, Raven. Ooh, pretty blouse,” Harley chirped pleasantly.

Anxious to make up for her earlier lapse, Raven went all out to make the
newcomer feel welcome. She offered them a table in the dining room,
and when Harley said they only wanted a few drinks, Raven suggested they at
least walk through the dining room on the way to the bar, so the Monarch’s
outfit could be seen.

Harley was so exhilarated by the whispered buzz of speculation as they
walked through the dining room, that she paused at the door to the bar and
jangled her tassels for attention. Once everyone turned to see, she
posed dramatically and declared, “Rogues of Gotham City, I present you with
the Monarch of Menace!”

Alfred returned to the Batcave as soon as he had made up the Rose Bedroom
for Miss Cassie. He escorted her silently up the stairs to the clock
passage, through the study, across the Great Hall, up the stairs to the
bedroom, and down the hall to the Rose Room. There he stopped and
coughed, once. To Cassie, it sounded like a Bat-grunt, the kind that
preceded a stern talking-to.

“I feel I should reiterate my too-brief apology, miss,” he said formally.
“My remarks were truly out of place. I fear that I, as well as Master
Nightwing and Miss Oracle, behaved rashly. We have all—”

“Because of Stephanie,” Cassie said with her usual brevity.

“Yes, miss,” Alfred said somberly.

“Stephanie was rash. Went in alone. Bad mistake.”

“Yes, miss,” Alfred agreed. “But your actions should not have been
judged because of what happened to her.”

“Yes, miss, but not with you. We, all of us, still have a great
deal of anger and sorrow and fear because of what happened.”

Cassie glanced anxiously down the hall, confirming there was no one
around to hear.

“I know. Lied to Tim. Tim ask what I saw, from Scarecrow gas.
I said ‘monster.’ Wasn’t. Was Stephanie.”

“I understand, miss,” Alfred said, his eyes moistening. He placed a
sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “Even without the Scarecrow’s
fear-inducing toxins, most of us are all too familiar with that sort of
vision.”

Never one to speak if she had nothing to say, Cassie stood in silence and
waited to be dismissed. Alfred stood a long moment, analyzing the
girl’s silence. Then abruptly he pointed into the room, the gesture
and the words to follow harkening back to a time when Master Dick, and
before him Master Bruce, tried to connive their way to staying up late on
Christmas Eve.

“Off with you, now,” he said with mock severity, “I shall bring you a cup
of milk with nutmeg and cinnamon, and after that, in bed and no excuses. You
have a full day ahead of you tomorrow.”

With uncharacteristic tact, Oswald waited until Harley went to powder her
nose before approaching the “Monarch of Menace.”

“So, a bank robbery,” he quacked, as an introduction. The whole bar
had heard the story, how he and Harley Quinn had cleaned out some safe
deposit boxes at the State Bank and Trust. “Not a lot of villains rob
banks anymore. A pity, really-kwak. It’s such a lucrative
activity.”

“Not bad,” the Monarch agreed.

“Of course they don’t keep as much cash around as they did in the
old days,” Oswald continued philosophically. “Safe deposit boxes might
contain a plethora of treasures but –kwak– you can’t exactly spend a
diamond-crusted Rolex at the minute mart. You need a quality agent
that can convert a wide variety of merchandise into something more -kwak-
liquid.”

“Oswald Cobblepot,” Monarch said with an ironic trill in his voice, “We
hereby grant thee official warrant for the sale of our sovereign spoils and
dub thee King’s Fence.”

Oswald chewed his cigarette holder thoughtfully.

“Very smooth,” he pronounced like a connoisseur of Roguery and the
accoutrements of criminal theme. “I knew the old Monarch,” he
continued, to show he was old school and recognized the resurrection of a
long-forgotten moniker. “The original Monarch of Menace was not
smooth. He was –kwak– something of a buffoon.”

“I know,” the new Monarch murmured subtly through his teeth, just loud
enough for Cobblepot to hear. “I look on him as an old, dated movie
that was overdue for a remake.”

Helena’s eyes danced sharply as she read her fortune to herself before
sharing it with Jean Paul.

“You will be fortunate in everything you put your hands
to,” she read in a deliciously liquid voice. Her eyes locked on his, a
sexy amusement he didn’t quite understand hanging in the air. “…in
bed,” she added finally.

“Huh?” he blurted, his voice cracking.

“You will be fortunate in everything you put your hands to… in bed,” she
repeated, with more impatience than seduction in her tone..

“Okay,” he grinned weakly.

“C’mon, don’t you know how to do this? You add ‘in bed’ onto the
end of your fortune. Here, look, what did you get?”

Jean Paul gulped.

“My friends never did that,” he said honestly.

“Well you’re going to do it now. Let’s see what you’ve got there,”
Helena ordered.

“We did do something like that in the dorm, though, but we added
something different on the end.”

“Come on, Jean Paul, let’s see your fortune!” Helena demanded, reaching
forward and tickling him until his hand popped open and she snatched the
slip of paper.

“Oh my,” she grinned evilly and read aloud, “’You have unusual equipment
for success, use it properly’—say it with me now, Hot Shot—‘in bed!’”

Jean Paul grinned sheepishly.

“My friends used a different phrase at the end, that’s all.”

“Oh yeah, I know. Some people say ‘between the sheets’ instead, but
‘in bed’ just works better somehow.”

“That’s not what we did,” Jean Paul said miserably.

“Well, let’s hear it. What did you use?”

“…with this new fully armed and operational battle station.”

Helena stared.

“We were geeks,” Jean Paul explained.

Helena burst out laughing.

“Well, that kind of works too. Seems a waste of the unusual
equipment, though, you naughty boy.”

Jean Paul read his fortune again.

“You have unusual equipment for success, use it properly—with this new
fully armed and operational battle station…”

He looked up, she looked up, and in unison they spoke the last two words.